GOLDILOCKS ON TRIAL By Jerry Rabushka

Transcription

1 GOLDILOCKS ON TRIAL By Jerry Rabushka Copyright 2015 by Jerry Rabushka, All rights reserved. ISBN: CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this Work is subject to a royalty. This Work is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America and all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations, whether through bilateral or multilateral treaties or otherwise, and including, but not limited to, all countries covered by the Pan-American Copyright Convention, the Universal Copyright Convention and the Berne Convention. RIGHTS RESERVED: All rights to this Work are strictly reserved, including professional and amateur stage performance rights. Also reserved are: motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound recording, all forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, such as CD-ROM, CD-I, DVD, information and storage retrieval systems and photocopying, and the rights of translation into non-english languages. PERFORMANCE RIGHTS AND ROYALTY PAYMENTS: All amateur and stock performance rights to this Work are controlled exclusively by Brooklyn Publishers, LLC. No amateur or stock production groups or individuals may perform this play without securing license and royalty arrangements in advance from Brooklyn Publishers, LLC. Questions concerning other rights should be addressed to Brooklyn Publishers, LLC. Royalty fees are subject to change without notice. Professional and stock fees will be set upon application in accordance with your producing circumstances. Any licensing requests and inquiries relating to amateur and stock (professional) performance rights should be addressed to Brooklyn Publishers, LLC. Royalty of the required amount must be paid, whether the play is presented for charity or profit and whether or not admission is charged. AUTHOR CREDIT: All groups or individuals receiving permission to produce this play must give the author(s) credit in any and all advertisement and publicity relating to the production of this play. The author s billing must appear directly below the title on a separate line where no other written matter appears. The name of the author(s) must be at least 50% as large as the title of the play. No person or entity may receive larger or more prominent credit than that which is given to the author(s). PUBLISHER CREDIT: Whenever this play is produced, all programs, advertisements, flyers or other printed material must include the following notice: Produced by special arrangement with Brooklyn Publishers, LLC COPYING: Any unauthorized copying of this Work or excerpts from this Work is strictly forbidden by law. No part of this Work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means now known or yet to be invented, including photocopying or scanning, without prior permission from Brooklyn Publishers, LLC. PUBLISHED BY BROOKLYN PUBLISHERS

2 2 GOLDILOCKS ON TRIAL GOLDILOCKS ON TRIAL A Ten Minute Comedic Duet By Jerry Rabushka SYNOPSIS: This oft-told fairy tale turns into a thrilling courtroom drama! After all, no bear wants to come back from a walk in the woods and find his fish head soup eaten. Should Goldilocks be punished to the fullest extent of the law? Should she be rewarded for finding a bear family that s just as human as the rest of us? Find out during Goldilocks On Trial! CAST OF CHARACTERS (1 female, 1 either; gender flexible) JUDGE (m/f)... An older, officious person. (31 lines) GOLDILOCKS (f)... 10; but acts too mature for her age. Can be played to great effect by an older performer. (31 lines) CAST NOTE: Judge and Goldilocks each play additional characters which are indicated throughout the script. SETTING: A courtroom, however it can be performed on a bare stage or with a minimal set of blocks or chairs. PRODUCTION NOTES Positioning on stage is important. If it s a bare stage in particular (or in this case a bear stage!), give your audience a sense of where the judge presides from a bench, where a witness would be, where lawyers would be questioning, etc. This will give your audience a better idea of who you are playing as you change character. Obviously we are dispensing with a lot of court room protocol and procedure and cutting straight to the action.

3 JERRY RABUSHKA 3 JUDGE: Miss Locks Goldie, I believe it is. GOLDILOCKS: (We should see from the start that she s been a difficult child.) Yes, your honor. JUDGE: Miss Locks, you stand accused of entering the home of The Three Bears and leaving the place a shambles. GOLDILOCKS: (Defiant.) I know what I ve done. I just don t see why it s a crime. Plus, I m about ten years old yet I m being tried as an adult. What s up with that? JUDGE: Because judging by your smart mouth, I d put you at about eighteen. But whatev. GOLDILOCKS: Did you just say whatev? How did you ever get the bench? JUDGE: I m trying to speak in language you can understand. (Officious.) First witness! Mrs. Bear, will you take the stand please? GOLDILOCKS: (As MAMA BEAR taking the witness stand, getting agitated quickly.) Such an insolent young lassie! She should be pummeled! Punished! Penalized! JUDGE: (Trying to restore order.) Just tell us what happened, Mrs. Bear. GOLDILOCKS: (As MAMA BEAR.) Call me Mama. JUDGE: Sing to me, Mama. GOLDILOCKS: (As MAMA BEAR. Scandalized.) First she comes in uninvited, then she complains! (Mockingly.) The soup was too cold, the bed was too soft, the chair was too small. As if I was keeping house for her! (Defensive.) I happen to like soft beds and cold soup. What of it? JUDGE: What happened the day of the break in? Your housekeeping isn t the issue here. GOLDILOCKS: (As MAMA BEAR.) It was Baby Bear who sustained the most damage. Miss Locks ate all his soup. Messed up his sheets. Sat in his chair and brrrroke it. (As herself.) Excuse me, Mrs. Bear. It was poopy! And flimsy. (As MAMA BEAR, losing her temper.) He s a baby, he doesn t need a La-Z-Boy recliner! What did you expect? (As herself, loud and outraged.) I expected you to clean it off before you left the house! What kind of a mother are you, Mama? JUDGE: Order in the court!

4 4 GOLDILOCKS ON TRIAL GOLDILOCKS: (As MAMA BEAR.) Order? What does this girl know about order? She left my house a disaster. JUDGE: Perhaps we should talk to Baby Bear, as he seems to be the most injured party. GOLDILOCKS: (As MAMA BEAR. Horrified.) Put my son on the stand? I don t want him to go through that horror! Can t you just punish her? JUDGE: We ll get to that. GOLDILOCKS: Wait a minute. My lawyer wants to cross-examine Papa Bear. (To her lawyer.) Grill him. Grill him like a burger over an open flame! JUDGE: (As LAWYER, loud, fast and aggressive.) Isn t it true that you overheated the porridge so Goldilocks would damage her palate?! GOLDILOCKS: (As PAPA BEAR, nonplussed.) No. JUDGE: (As LAWYER.) Isn t it true that you put cement in your bed so Goldilocks would injure her back? GOLDILOCKS: (As PAPA BEAR.) No. JUDGE: (As LAWYER.) Not Isn t it true you re abusing Mama Bear by letting her soup get cold, her bed get soft, and making her sit in an undersized buttocks support system? GOLDILOCKS: (As PAPA BEAR.) No, none of that s true. JUDGE: (As LAWYER.) Are you calling me a liar? GOLDILOCKS: (As PAPA BEAR.) Now that s true! JUDGE: (As LAWYER. Has an AHA! Moment.) And it is true you left the door unlocked so that a small child could wander in and injure herself! GOLDILOCKS: (As PAPA BEAR.) I live in a deep dark forest. No one should be near our house! (In a different tone.) Don t we get points for being talking bears? (To audience.) Does anyone find that wonderful and unique? JUDGE: This is getting nowhere! Goldilocks, your lawyer needs to stick to the facts at hand. GOLDILOCKS: I got lost. I was mushroom hunting, and suddenly I had no idea where I was. So I see this house standing wide open. I m like, I think I ll go in and ask for directions. There s soup on the table. I m like I better eat this before it goes to waste. It s fish head soup. So whether it was hot, cold, or even just right, it was still fish soup.do head Copy

5 JERRY RABUSHKA 5 JUDGE: (As MAMA BEAR, sarcastically polite.) Excuse me, young lady if Mama Bear can get a word in but we re bears. We eat fish heads. We pretty much pull fish out of the water and eat. So the soup thing is new to me. We re not sure yet if we like it cold, hot, or just right. GOLDILOCKS: You d think just right would be just right all the time. Thank you for reading this free excerpt from GOLDILOCKS ON TRAIL by Jerry Rabushka. For performance rights and/or a complete copy of the script, please contact us at: Brooklyn Publishers, LLC P.O. Box 248 Cedar Rapids, Iowa Toll Free: Fax (319)